ME HUNGY

Technically, I’m not at day 44… yet.

-source

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Do it for the birds

This is real. It’s for when  you want to sit on your lawn waiting for a Hummingbird to suck nectar from your head. Mother’s Day is coming up fast, you know.

Teacher with bunny phobia sues 14-yr-old for drawing; Also, owl w/ fear of heights

I love catching stories like this  from the Telegraph UK going across the wires:

A teacher with a phobia over rabbits is suing a 14-year-old pupil for compensation after she drew a bunny on the blackboard.

The teacher, from Vechta, Germany, says she was traumatised by the drawing, and claims the girl knew it would terrify her.

She had transferred to the school where a pupil from her former school had just become a pupil and told her new friends about the teacher’s fear of rabbits.

“We did it for fun and out of curiosity”, one of the girls told a court, adding, “We wanted to see if she would really freak out.”

School officials removed her from the class and now the teacher is seeking compensation for her terror and her loss of earnings, her lawyer Manfred Bormann told the court.

The case continues.

Since I’m on the subject of phobias, here’s a good story on a tawny owl whose childhood trauma left him afraid of heights.

YES!! Super Mario Bros. 1 mashup with Mega Man, Contra, Zelda

 

It is what it looks like it is and it is glorious! Original Super Mario Bros., but you can choose a different NES character. The characters act just like they do in their own games (Samus has ball/bomb/wave beam, Simon from Castlevania jumps like a wuss and has a whip/axe, etc…), and the music comes from their games. A Contra gun to fight a curmudgeonly waddling mushroom might be overkill, but it’s overkill of the raddest kind.

Here’s the game:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534416

What Generation Pepsi child did not at some point wish for this?

saw it on thedw

Random news

• New Finnegan’s Wake to have 9000 CHANGES, cost €300-€900

• Finance in a school district with three students

• Woman who  wrote book on training men like dogs sues when method goes very wrong

• Library drama!: Library head out after letting WaPo watch layoffs

• Lohan sues, over unauthorized character use (not defamation), E*Trade Baby ad w/ ‘milkaholic’ baby.

Note the argument she will have to make about her ‘character.’ She’ll have to make that argument in a courtroom. Wow. The question will probably be: Is ‘Lindsay’ a name like J-Lo, instantly recognizable as meaning Lindsay Lohan? The answer should deflate her ego a tad.

• Canadian Parliament showing support on seal clubbing, will serve seal meat for lunches.

I became a vegetarian while researching salmon populations (hint: outlook not good), so I should be happy to see people killing seals, right? they being fish preditors and all? No? I’m kidding but it does remind me of the shortest joke I know… “So a baby seal walks into a club…”

• Attention Borders employees, you may not be anymore.

• You can buy a disgraced mayor’s Xbox! Comes with 1 controller and Need for Speed

And the nominee for most inappropriate title on a science blog is…

Sippy Cups, Hard Core Porn and Human Mortification

Minding my business at work, glancing at the scrolling news wire, and THAT pops up. The post is TMI-Central.

Hilarious NYT error, as pointed out by WaPo

See if you can find it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/technology/images/NYT-Clinton-Photo-Caption.jpg

Complete explanation of the Iraq war in 7 seconds

Saw it on Cynical-C

Year’s oddest book title finalists announced

Britain’s auspicious Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year has six finalists:

• Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
• Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
• Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots
•  The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
• What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?

A public vote will decide the winner this March. The victor will join the ranks of such prior winners as Bombproof Your Horse, Developments in Dairy Cow Breeding: New Opportunities to Widen the Use of Straw, and How to Avoid Huge Ships. I like that the judge for this award ensures the books are properly published (not just self-published online, etc), and that he tries to stray from books that were purposely titled to get into the running.

Axe Cop is my hero

By now everyone knows the hero of the masses who is Axe Cop. Axe Cop is what happens when a professional comic book designer hangs out with his five-year-old brother over Christmas–the five-year-old starts telling a story and the older brother listens, laughs, and starts drawing it. It’s the type of comic I haven’t seen since Calvin and Hobbes, and it makes me think maybe Bill Watterson pulled plotlines from playground conversations. (Sidenote–recent newspaper interview from reclusive Watterson here). Who knows, maybe Axe Cop’s the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

TSA and Fed trading places

I had a fantasy in which the Fed and the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) switched roles.If a bank failed at 9 a.m. one morning and shut its doors, the TSA would announce that all banks henceforth begin their business day at 10 a.m.

And, if a terrorist managed to get on board a plane between Stockholm and Washington, the Fed would increase the number of flights between the cities.

Posted by Emanuel Derman, author of My Life as a Quant, pointed out by Felix Salmon

Wu-Tang Clan ain’t Nothin’ to Hug With

saw it on ffffound.com

The Beatles: a look back in the year 3000 (Scottie Pippen was my fav Beatle)

Saw it here